Matryoshka Easter Eggs

Make this adorable matryoshka egg set while celebrating Easter.

Lately, I have been obsessed with matyoshka dolls and I remembered my friend had various sizes of eggs at her farm. I wanted to make a cute project that children and adults would adore but could also be a fun snack.

You can make these any color you want. I just chose purple and neon green!

Step 1: Make Friends With a Farmer

For these multi-sized eggs you will need to make friends with someone who raises chickens or make a visit to the farmers market.

These eggs are already beautiful shades of blue, green and brown. The blue and greenish colored eggs come from a chicken breed called Americana. The small blue and tan eggs are from a Bantam hen. The largest brown eggs are store bought organic.

All colors will work well for this project but tan will give our dolls a skin tone.

Try to choose up to four egg sizes. The store bought eggs are usually the biggest so you can use those for your largest doll. A large farm chicken egg will probably be your next size, then a larger Bantam egg and then a normal sized Bantam egg.

Step 2: Other Materials

Other materials you will need to gather are:

Various shallow dishes

Vinegar

Various colors of food coloring

Markers

Egg stands (Paper towel tube chopped into smaller circles works well)

Newspaper or drop cloth

Masking tape

Step 3: Hard Boil Your Eggs

To turn this project into just a cute set of dolls to a food you will need to hardboil your eggs.

There are a dozen (haha) ways to hard boil eggs.

I put mine in a sauce pan and cover with water where about one inch sits over the top of the eggs.

Bring to a boil and once it reaches a boil turn it down to medium high heat for about five minutes.

Test to see if they are done by lifting one egg with a spoon and checking to see how fast the water evaporates off the egg. If it takes over 6 seconds put it back in. If it dries quickly you are ready to move to the next step.

Turn off your stove and remove the sauce pan then CAREFULLY dump out the hot water. Run cold water back over the eggs in the sauce pan until they are cool enough to touch. Let them cool completely on a towel.

Refrigerate if you won't be doing the next steps right away.

Step 4: Masking

You will need to block out the part of the egg that will serve as the dolls face.

Ideally, each face will be progressively smaller on the eggs to match their size.

If you can find multiple sizes of circle stickers that would work to mask off the face before you dip it in dye.

You can use this method as well by applying a cut out circle or oval of masking tape and pressing it on firmly.

Step 5: Coloring the Eggs

The coloring will be a two part process.

First you need to dye the bottom half of the egg

Choose four shallow dishes that you will be holding the dye in.

Choose the eggs you will be dipping into corresponding dishes (try to choose all the same color/shade).

Pour just enough water so that it will meet right be low the halfway point of the egg.

You can dip each egg in the bowl to make sure you get the right amount.

Add one teaspoon of vinegar to each dish.

Add a few drops of food coloring to each dish (all the same color and the same amount of drops).

Stir.

One by one, carefully put the egg into the color bath and tape the egg across the top with masking tape so that it sits upright. (it helps to tape the top center of the egg first and then dipping the egg and pressing the tape along the edges of the dish).

You will do the same for the other three different sized eggs.

Let them sit for a few minutes and remove all eggs at the same time. Let them dry on the egg stands.

Repeat this process for the top part of the egg but make sure that when you create your water line, it does not overlap the previous colored side.

It's okay if you make a few "OOPS" eggs. They'll all get eaten just the same.

I used Neon food coloring. Purple = 7 drops pink, 1 drop blue. The green top was 4 drops of green.

Step 6: Add Features and Decoration

Once all the dye is dry you can start adding features to the faces.

Start by drawing and coloring in two tufts of hair.

Draw the outline of the lips and color in with red marker.

Dot pink on the cheeks for blush

Use a fine black marker to draw eyes and eye lashes

Draw a design on the front of the doll

With a white paint pen draw a little knot under the face. This is two petals and a dot, basically.

Step 7: Finished!

If you don't plan on eating these right away you should refrigerate them until ready for display and consumption!

Thank you for reading this instructable. I hope you enjoyed it!